threaded holes in the surface to anchor pana-vise tools in various positions

Mantis and Microscope arms are mounted on a corner of the bench

Along the back of the bench (above the backsplash) is a 16” deep shelf for the bench meters, signal generator, electronic loads, and JBC soldering controller

Four 8′ shelves above are about 18″ deep, and can handle any of the lab equipment, even large power supplies and Variacs

Heat resistant anti-static mat

Ground Monitor & wrist strap

ESD floor mat

ESD safe chair, with ground chain

Equipment Rack (left):

6′ steel frame with 2′ x 4′ reinforced 3/4” plywood shelves

Rack is mouned on locking castors for easy access

Contains servers, UPS, 3 montiors on articulating arms

Additional storage accessible on the back

Tool drawer unit, left side (the kind designed to hang on the side of a mechanic’s rolling toolchest)

Horizontal file rack (legal-size) to hold component cases, etc.

designed to hold heavy equipment like the Fluke 3330B Calibrator

Lighting:

Having good lighting is important. Hanging directly above the bench is a 4 tube flourescent light, which alone illuminates the benchtop at 700 lux. There’s also a row of dimmable 5 LED floods (around 2700 K) mounted on a track next to the flourescent fixture and those add another 600 lux… with everything switched on, the bench is litup at 1300 lux!

I also have the dimmable 144 LED ring light, which seems to provide plenty of illumination for inspection/soldering work. http://store.amscope.com/led-144-yk.html
This has been a great setup, I use it all of the time. I specifically bought a trinocular (extra mount for a camera), and plan to add a camera soon.
I have had this for nearly a year, with no complaints. Amscope was easy to order from, and they ship quickly.

Hi, thanks for the video on the Amscope articulating arm. If you use it for soldering and you bump the eyepieces will it move the your view of the object being soldered or can you lock down the arm firmly enough that it will stay put?

It really doesn’t move much if I bump it with it unlocked, but that’s at a soldering magnification (4x – 8x). It might be quite different if you set it to 90x.
There are knobs(large turn-screws) at each of the 3 moving joints which lock it down quite tightly.

I have a second arm which I use to mount various Pan-a-Vise clamps (the hole in the mounting arm is the right size). I use those to position my soldering work, then lock the arm down. I find it to be quite stable.

Myrtle, If you’re at RIT, I bet there’s a few handy engineering types around and between us can help you out.
If I understand you correctly, the USB port on the end got pushed into the pen, and now you can’t get a plug into it?

Be careful with this, as you may damage the circuit board and not be able to retreive any data.

My first suggestion is to contact Livescribe tech support to see if they can retrieve the data for you. They may be happy to help.

But, if you want to do this on your own:
First, you will need to disassemble the pen (I forgot to video that part).

To do that I just gripped the pen with one hand on the black part and one on the grey and pulled. Flexing or twisting a little while pulling helps.

Do this with the display facing up, as there’s a little clear plastic cylinder that can fall out.

This may take quite a bit of strength, and persistence, but it will pull apart.

Then, take out the two screws, you will need a #5 Torx driver for that.

Next slide the black shell down(away from the USB end).

You now need to remove the circuit board, as the USB connector is on the back side.
I did not go beyond that.

Thanks I got the pen open and the cylinder did indeed fall out. I will email a colleague in electrical engineering. I’m pretty handy and thought this might be something that I could either fix myself or get someone to do quickly. I really appreciate your help.

Would you have anymore photos of your bench and shelving setup? we are moving offices and I’m looking for some inspiration to reconfigure my bench. Would you still happen to know the type of shelving/racking you’ve used?